NASSP Recognizes Contributions to Excellence in Education

Keith Taton presents Distinguished Service Award to David Chernow from Junior Achievement.

NASSP President Keith Taton presented a Distinguished Service Award to Junior Achievement (JA) during the Opening General Session at the NASSP Convention. JA has local offices and affiliates in more than 100 countries around the world and seeks to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics to improve the quality of their lives.

"The success of JA is something that could not have been done without you. Caring, committed principals like you have opened the door to more than 50 million children since 1919," said David Chernow, JA's chief executive director, when he accepted the award.

JA enables caring business professionals to share their experience with students and show them what it takes to succeed. These volunteers, educators, parents, and contributors reach out to 4 million students in grades K-12 each year in the United States.

Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told Convention attendees, "If each of us can find a way to help every principal in the U.S. [we can] double the number of low-income and minority kids who graduate and go to college."

NASSP presents Distinguished Service Awards to individuals and companies for their dedication to excellence in education every year at the national Convention.

At the Convention's Closing General Session, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation received the second Distinguished Service Award. The foundation shares NASSP's mission of helping students achieve and has joined the Association as a partner on many initiatives, including the many reforms detailed in NASSP's new Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform.

The Gates Foundation focuses its education investments on creating smaller high schools and reducing financial barriers to higher education.

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